Beating the Heat

It’s 90 degrees outside, and the temperature is still rising. This is the second day of this heat; certainly not typical of June in New Hampshire, but sweltering none the less. Earlier in the week my daughter Abby mentioned that her downstairs air conditioner was not working.

I am by nature a problem solver. I immediately checked my bank account, while calculating what I believed to be an accurate guess of the square footage of Abby’s and John’s house. I looked up a chart to find out what size unit was needed to cool the first floor.

And then I stopped.

Abby never asked me to help her. In fact, she stated that by keeping the shades drawn, the downstairs was quite comfortable, and the family could always escape to an air conditioned bedroom.

This gave me pause to think about summers when I was a child. When I was growing up, people rarely had home air conditioning. In fact, many stores weren’t air conditioned. When I was very young, my family had only one small table top fan that whirred like an airplane and threatened little fingers with menacing metal blades. My older sister and I took turns sitting in front of it on hot nights when our beds were too tangled and we were too sweaty for sleep. As I grew older, I discovered that by moving my pillow to the floor underneath the windowsill, I could catch a cool breeze and read by the streetlight at the same time. I felt as if I had won the lottery.

We children found relief from the heat in many ways. We hiked up Academy Hill to the town library, and sat inside the cool granite walls, turning the pages to lose ourselves in adventures of exotic people in far-off lands. We sat beneath the shade of the catalpa tree, drawing tic-tac-toes in the earth below the eaves on the north end of the house on Green Street. We checked the pay phone at the corner of Main and Lincoln Streets for spare dimes and bought Popsicles to split and share. And on rare occasions, ended the day with a swim at a lake, hanging our bare feet from the back of the station wagon on the ride home.

As a teen I watched my mother orchestrate a daily game of hide and seek with the summer sun. Early in the morning she opened the shades on the west side of the house and shut the blinds on the east side. She turned newly purchased window fans to the highest setting to bring in the cool morning air, and then as the sun rose high in the sky, shut them off and pulled the blinds, keeping the house as dark and cool as possible. Housework was done in the early hours, and the evening meal was not cooked until the sun began to dip, making for leisurely dinners savored well after dark.

Certainly reminiscences of the Days-Before-Air-Conditioning are more pleasurable done in the comfort of my apartment, where central air is included in the rent, and window fans are forbidden. However, I do believe that given uncomfortable circumstances, most people will find creative solutions. As I learned from my mother, Abby learned from me how drawing the shades and keeping the house neat, clean and calm lends itself to a cooler environment for her little boys. Yesterday she filled a wading pool for Judah and let him splash until his toes looked like prunes and his hair formed spikes that dripped pool water over his face. She took him out for sorbet…before lunch! She found a spot in the shade for Abram, who undisturbed by the sound of traffic and his brother’s happy shrieks, turned his face toward the breeze and settled into a relaxed summer snooze.

Tomorrow a cold front is supposed to move in, and by Wednesday night the temperatures are supposed to drop to the high 40s. But for today, the fans are whirring, the cicadas are humming, and I hear an ice cream cone calling my name.

Garrie Madison Stoutimore

It was a delightful respite from the heat, although the walk up Academy Hill was a killer. I used to stand on the bridge over the railroad tracks and yearn for a way to get to the trickles of water that fell through the granite.

Robin

I remember tuna salad (with peas) and pancakes for dinner on those sweltering evenings, and fruit topped with sherbet. Dad always wanting crackers and milk for his supper. All of us kids sharing 2 root beers at Brown’s Drug Store, running thru the sprinkler, and eating outside at the table made from saw horses and an old door. Mary Newland doing story hour on the grass of the library. Was there anyone ever as good at story telling as she?